The actor Richard Dreyfuss has taken aim at Walt Disney Company’s accounting practices in a suit filed against the company and in relation to 1991 comedy What About Bob?
Dreyfuss, along with fellow plaintiff Christine Wagner – who is seeking an audit of the returns from Turner & Hooch, the comedy produced by her late husband – alleges that the studio refuses to allow a firm that specialises in profit participation audits to examine their books.
The firm that Dreyfuss and Wagner wish to engage, Robinson and Co, and who they describe as a “particularly effective and aggressive auditor”, is also a plaintiff in the suit. Disney apparently prefer to use the so-called Big Four firms, but have not given any reason for their rejection of Robinson.
The suit adds: “What Disney has done is reduce an already very small pool of auditors to a nearly nonexistent puddle, and made it exceedingly difficult for profit participants to retain the best possible representation and be paid the monies they are due.”
It also attacks wider studio accounting practices, alleging a three-year wait to examine Disney’s books, which they call “inexcusable and outrageous”.
Wagner claims that her husband’s company is due 50% of the profits from Turner & Hooch, which made £114m worldwide. Dreyfuss costarred with Bill Murray in What About Bob?, which took £43m in the US alone.
